A Plea for Administrative Decentralization

THE postwar federal budget is approximately forty billion dollars. The last prewar federal budget was approximately nine billions. Annual expenditures of state and local governments combined have remained roughly stable over this period and amount to about thirteen billions. The implication in terms of political centralization is obvious. With federal expenditures rising from 70 to 300 per cent of the outlay of all other governmental units, a new era of vastly increased federal administrative activity is inevitable. Although the writer six years ago expressed a strong faith in the values of local self-government,l and although since then administrative experience in more centralized European countries has increased rather than decreased that faith, he does not feel that American constitutional government is necessarily endangered by the great acceleration in fiscal and administrative activity on the federal level. Safeguards are desirable, of course-safeguards in the interest both of public control and of operative efficiency. Improvement of legislative machinery-toward which happily a beginning is being made-is desirable. Improvement of the party mechanism is desirable. A fuller and clearer publication of the federal government's financial activity is desirable. And certain technical administrative improvements are desirable. It is with one of these technical improvements that this article is concerned-the mechanism of administrative decentralization. Parenthetically, a limitation of subject should be here inserted. The following discussion is not primarily concerned with the political decentralization inherent in the American federal-state-local system. It is concerned almost

Decentralization · Plea · Political science · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Public Administration · Taxation and Legal Issues

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